It’s the third weekend of August, and you’re circling the same four blocks near the Plaza for the fifth time. Every lot is full, cars are nosed into spaces that aren’t quite spaces, and a hundred and fifty thousand people have come to town for Indian Market. Your car is about to spend the afternoon wedged into whatever spot you can find.
These are some of the best weekends of the year in Santa Fe. Indian Market fills the Plaza in mid-August, Zozobra draws tens of thousands to Fort Marcy on the Friday of Labor Day weekend, and Fiesta runs the days after. They’re also the handful of weekends when your car spends hours parked in crowded, unfamiliar places, surrounded by a lot of other cars and a lot of distracted people.
A little planning goes a long way. Here are a few things worth doing.
Know the closures before you go
During Indian Market, the Plaza and the streets around it close to vehicles, so the parking you’re used to simply isn’t there. On Zozobra night, streets near Fort Marcy close off too, and traffic backs up all over the north side of downtown. Look up the closures ahead of time and decide where you’ll actually park, rather than driving into the middle of it and hoping. The narrow one-way streets downtown get slow and tight when the city’s full, and slow, tight, and crowded is how most parking-lot fender-benders happen.
The dents nobody owns up to
Pack a lot of cars close together, add drivers who don’t know the area, and someone is going to back into a bumper or swing a door into a fender and drive off. A packed event weekend is exactly when it happens. You can tilt the odds:
- Park a few blocks farther out than you’d like. The walk is short and the spaces are roomier.
- Take a photo of where you left the car, because after five hours at the market, every adobe corner looks the same.
- Back into the space if you can, so you’re not blind-backing into a river of pedestrians later.
What’s in the car matters more this weekend
Crowded events draw break-ins, and a bag or a camera visible on the seat is an invitation. People bring good cameras to Indian Market, and they leave the market with things they’ve bought. Take the valuables with you, or at least get them out of sight before you park rather than after you’ve arrived.
A quick word on coverage
It’s worth knowing how your own policy handles a parked-car problem before one happens. A broken window and a stolen bag, or a dent from someone who left no note, are usually treated differently than a collision you’re part of. Theft and vandalism generally fall under comprehensive coverage, and a hit-and-run on a parked car may involve comprehensive or your uninsured-motorist coverage depending on how your policy is written. The practical question for a busy weekend is a simple one: do you know your deductible, and would a small dent even be worth filing on? Knowing that in advance saves you from working it out in a parking lot.
Worth the Crowds
None of this is a reason to stay home. Indian Market and Zozobra are why a lot of people love living here in the first place. Park a little farther out, tuck your things away, and know how your coverage works, and the only thing you’ll be left thinking about is the art, the crowd, and Old Man Gloom going up in flames.